A World Without The Legend of Zelda

Get a glimpse of where the game industry would be without Nintendo's flagship series.

Imagine, if you will, waking this weekend to sink precious free time into The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. You turn on your Wii, only to discover a disc-free drive. Figuring out the most likely culprit, you head to your roommate's door, asking if he napped your copy in the dark of night. His response? "What the heck is 'The Legend of Zelda?'" Something is wrong here. Something is very, very wrong.

Luckily, this horror story is wholly fictional, though it does pose an interesting question: just what would the world be like without The Legend of Zelda? Since the series has become a known quantity of late, it's easy to take for granted the innovative ideas pioneered by Shigeru Miyamoto's creation over the past 25 years. To be fair, other developers would've eventually stumbled upon the revolutionary concepts featured in Zeldas past and present, but their efforts would not have arrived as early, nor would they be presented as elegantly. So, in this nightmarish scenario best reserved for the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Ayn Rand, what horrors would we face in a world without Zelda?

The NES Wouldn't Have Proven Itself a Worthy PC Competitor

Nintendo's initial line-up didn't reach far beyond the bounds of its arcade efforts -- remember, these were the days when console games strived to be "arcade perfect." So, while games like Super Mario Bros., Excitebike, and Kung-Fu certainly provided better experiences than their Atari-based competitors, PC gaming stood as an entirely different beast. Remember, before the days of Windows 95 and Plug and Play, getting a PC program to run properly often presented more of a challenge than any puzzles found in the actual game itself. The PC games market reflected this savvier audience, as well as their improved means of input; while Nintendo-ites were hopping and bopping with Mario, those lucky (and wealthy) enough to own a computer in the early 80s found themselves undergoing relatively sprawling adventures full of real characters with actual dialogue, like the King's Quest series.

The first Legend of Zelda changed console gaming's superficial reputation by presenting a game that wasn't meant to be finished in one sitting; sure, some Nintendo titles featured level select codes as a roundabout way of incorporating this same feature, but Zelda's built-in battery acted as a "bookmark" of sorts -- introducing an audience of millions to the concept of "saving" your game. With this idea in place, Nintendo showed that console gaming could present an experience that couldn't be bought elsewhere for 25 cents.

Game Design Would be Much More Chaotic

For a game hailing from 1986, The Legend of Zelda has an astounding amount of moving parts -- though their elegant implementation isn't happenstance. Other games -- especially those on the PC -- would feature inventory systems of their own, though Zelda differs by making sure all of the items collected actually serve some purpose in the long run. Those used to more complex computer adventures had no choice but to nab anything that wasn't nailed down for fear of some future obstacle eventually screwing them out of progress. Zelda may have existed in an age where designers often forced players to restart from the beginning if they missed a single item, but Nintendo managed to avoid this issue entirely. Need more bombs, arrows, or potions? The means to obtain any of these objects can be found all around young Link. His world is open and inviting, rewarding experimentation instead of punishing a player's creativity with unfair and unforeseen deaths.

Game Series Wouldn't Draw Upon Their Pasts

In the 8-bit era, the idea of what a sequel should be wasn't fully formed -- which may explain why Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link took entirely different approaches than their predecessors. And even though Zelda now operates on a model fully formed by Ocarina of Time, by A Link to the Past, we all assumed that each game in the series would move our hero Link to a different land, full of new treasures to find and monsters to slay. It's fair to criticize the series for relying on its history a bit too much, but Nintendo has created a mythology of sorts with The Legend of Zelda; one they can iterate upon, and subvert to surprise their audience. By sticking so close to the central tenants of the monomyth -- intentionally or not -- The Legend of Zelda eventually proved tradition had much to offer gaming, and that often the simplest stories resonate with us the most.

3D Combat Would Still be Messy

Though id Software had the whole "3D controls" thing down pat with 1996's Quake, steering a character outside of the FPS context still presented many challenges. Of course, Mario 64 proved this brave new world of polygons could be just as fluid as games from the past gen, thanks to its smart design and analog controls; but outside of a few awkward punches, combat wasn't Mario's bag. Facing enemies one-on-one -- let alone aiming and firing projectiles accurately -- proved even clumsier until Ocarina of Time's Z-targeting arrived to save the day. Though earlier games offered their own stabs at targeting systems, Ocarina's clicked more than any had in the past; Z-targeting always informed the player of their current target, and prevented Link from squaring off against more than one enemy at a time. Other developers would take this ball and run with it, causing Ocarina's bold experiment to seem downright primitive in our modern era -- but without Nintendo's patented lock-on technology, who knows how long it would take the industry to overcome the difficulties presented by the dreaded Z-axis?

Levels Would Be Far More Linear

Before The Legend of Zelda, video game levels mostly existed as a one-and-done sort of thing; you'd go from point A to point B, and never trod the same territory again. The first Zelda turned this idea on its ear by allowing players to go from point Q to point F, all the while allowing them to do just whatever the heck they wanted in between. Past areas didn't fade from existence just because Link scrolled them off-screen; even geography considered thoroughly explored would yield valuable secrets when revisited with new items, rewarding perceptive players. This early open world approach made Hyrule feel much more alive than any video game world before it, as the ever-present mini-map stood as a constant reminder that a land teeming with danger constantly existed around Link. PC games of the mid-80s might have tried to offer robust worlds of their own, but Zelda showed how well this idea could work in a context far more accessible than what could be found in Ultima or Wizardry.

screwed

Hmn...

I'm seeing alot of people arguing the point, "these kind of advancements would have come to fruition anyways, in another form, as another game, etc..." I hate this kind of logic. It's the same argument that people pose in music or movies. Like hey, the Beatles were the Beatles. They did what maybe would have been done in exactly the same sense if they had been someone else, but you know what? No one else did it. The Beatles did it, so we are going to and should write about the Beatles, because they were the Beatles.

So Zelda did everything Zelda did and it's important becuase Zelda did it in all the ways you elaborate upon Bob. If another game were Zelda, then we'd be reading about that game, but it didn't.

I feel silly writing all this, but...I mean c'mon peeps. And to clarify, I'm more of a Joy Division man myself...I just had to use the Beatles as an example because, just like Zelda's Zelda, The Beatles are The Beatles. Also, I really enjoyed reading this.

GOOD WELL WRITED!!!!

every word you writte bob its full of truth!!! this fucking kids of today dont know nothing about good games !!! they play the same shit everyday, and go trolling every fucking day!!! by things they never play and never understand!!! they just talk shit !! just like their fucking brain full of it!!!!! congrats by put point of view!!!!

amen bro!

umm...

Zelda today still has charm and elegance to it. It's not as innovative has it was or has been in the past but the motion contol of Skyward Sword is definatly the way to go for all future installments. Find it to be really good. Read alot of comments where they say that they have a difficult time with it, but so far, it's been very kind to me. LLL.... Long Live Link

comment

This is true.

With out specific games, such as mario and zelda, games would be alot less creative. It is a obvious pattern the each Zelda game builds on the last, and has a different story line. other games, such as Mario or call of duty is just the same thing over. Get to bower and kill him, or just shoot the foe. Zelda opened up the world to ideas like new bosses, instead of sticking with ganon, they made vatti. They also included interesting objectives in the games, like in Links awakening the objective is to wake the wind fish so you can sail home.

But the internet

@Almostautumn

...there is plenty to fight about...CoD for instance. Maybe Elder Scrolls (either which version is the best/least buggy) would have a lot of it. So yeah, where people congregate in large groups and are anonymous, there will be arguing...

well

Really?

Should have been called a world without Nintendo. None of the gaming advancements we have now would not have been possible without Nintendo.

First to have four face buttons...Nintendo

First to have Shoulder Buttons....Nintendo

First to have Analog.....Nintendo

First to have Motion Control....Nintendo

What did the other gaming companies do? The all copied and followed suit.

Nintendo IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE, an innovator. This is all fact, it did not take a certain franchise for this to happen, it took a certain company that isnt afraid to take risks in the gaming world. Micrsoft and Sony are to conservative. Their investors expect them to stay that way as well. Nintendo has, and always will, think outside the box. Just look at Sony's and Microsofts controllers, they are Identical to their last consoles controllers (Sony's is awesome though), But this is what I mean. Nintendo's may meet with mixed results, but at least they are not afraid to try to give its customers something new and innovative. I Cant wait to use the Wii-U controller and see how innovative it will be.

This...

I concur. You only have to look at motion controls to see the evidence of this phenomenon. While Nintendo wasn't the first to offer it, they were the first to make it mainstream. I love me some Sony and M$, but they are and always will be copycats. Nintendo is the purest gaming company out of the 3.

if you're gonna talk about online

The Dreamcast deserves most of the credit but yeah, i agree Nintendo dropped the ball on that one not to mension that you can't use points on your Wii on the 3DS. lets hope nintendo ditch origin work with steam and revamp online so that it's comparable to PS3 and XBox 360

True

What Alf_Alfia says is mostly true. Sony does get points for being the first successful console to use fiber optical storage for its software (CD's, Technically it was Sega, but the Sega CD and Saturn weren't successful consoles).

Sony also gave us the first dual analog stick, which was ripped off by Nintendo for Gamecube. They both did some mutual ripping off each other. Sony had the eye toy, which used motion controls before the Wii remote showed up. Dual analog is becoming dated but it allowed home consoles to become good machines for FPS games. Microsoft wouldn't have revolutionized the industry Halo without the dual analog setup.

Sega also deserves credit for being the first console to successfully use online connection. Phantasy Star Online really was groundbreaking in its day. The Dreamcast is probably one of the most underrated systems of all time. I miss the days of Sega being in the console business. They put out some awesome machines.

Xbox introduced... uh still thinking... oh I know a system killing Red Ring.

Sony Move and MS Kinect may be better in the motion controls than Wii, but Wii came first, and I would expect Wii U to be better than the competitors. As with any tech, later versions will be better, but the innovator is Nintendo. The followers are everyone else.

To King_Mob

Sony did create the first console to be succesful with optical drives, but did you know the playstaion was born from Nintendo? Nintendo wanted a CD drive add on for the Super NES, because sega had the Sega CD. They hired Sony for this task. After seeing how terribly the Sega C.D. failed Nintendo seen no need in an optical drive add on, so the add on was canned. Sony decided it did not want to see its R&D money go to waste and decided to enter the Gaming market using the technology they created for Nintendo, which some of Nintendo's R&D collaberated with. Thus the Playstation was born, and it bit Nintendo in their stubborn ass. As far as the dual analog goes, yes Sony was the first to do that, but it took Nintendo to slap the gamig world in the face and say look at this Mario game we made and look at how it controls. Would Sony had even created analog controls without Nintendo? Maybe, Maybe not

@VinceA

analog doesn't mean a stick- it means degrees of tilt on the device yield degrees of response within the game, such as Link's going from a slow stroll to a brisk jog as you slowly tilt the stick forward. atari systems would never have had the memory capacity to create that type of feedback processing- not even the arcade machines- even had the technology been available in the early 80's. just thought i'd clear that up :)

however...

it seems you knew this, and i'm a fool- i just looked it up, and you were right. even so, my lack of knowledge on the matter just goes to show how ineffective their grasp of the concept was- apparently, it was useless. nintendo was the first to make it work at all, let alone apply it to something fun in a useful manner. we'll give them the props. Lamborghini didn't invent the dream supercar, after all- they just made it infinitely awesome.

The sega 3d control pad

had just as workable of a model (actually a smoother and far more robust design) for analog thumb control, plus analog triggers and no stupid 3rd handle, and came out almost exactly the same time as the N64. In fact it was available in North America well before.

Microsoft is particularly guilty of stealing Sega's design for the xbox controller.

I just don't see how history is being rewritten so that nintendo 'invented' 3D. Total bullshit. They looked at 3D in a new and important way, but invented it? Excuse me?

Remember playing wip3out on playstation before you'd ever heard of N64? I do.

@OP

I agree with you I've always seen Nintendo as the innovator of the companies they just leave their consoles stagnate for too long without software anymore and it's making me sad. Though there is something to be said about 3rd party devs failing to pick up the slack since one of the reasons Nintendo eased up on 1st party releases was to give 3rd parties a chance. But too many 3rd parties get caught up in the gimmicks of the system and dont make a game that uses them. Instead they make a game built around them and it feels clunky. And to the person who said motion contorls and Dual screens are gimmicks it's funny that everyone else is trying to cash in on the idea now though right? Motion controls I don't feel are a gimmick but I don't feel they fit as a primary control scheme either. The same as how we have a D-Pad and an Analog stick now I feel it works well when used to enhance and isn't the only option.

@king_mob I'm not sure why Halo is considered a revolutionary console game seeing as GoldenEye on N64 was an incredible fps to hit consoles well before Halo. And to be fair Turok 1 and 2 were solid as well (could just be me remembering the fond times I had with them but I have positive feelings bout them). I guess because by the time Halo came out I was aleady introduced to the PC world of fps so Halo was nothing new for me. It just seemed lacking of what I was used to in a fps, but to each their own I guess. I just to this day don't understand why Halo got as much hype as it did.

@robolizardwizard it's about gameplay. You can try and troll all you want about how "LOL Nintendo just realeses the same game over and over and over." but you know what it may have the same title but their gameplay is usually leaps and bounds ahead of what everyone else is doing. Skyward Sword and Skyrim fall under the same umbrella of RPG or Action Adventure depending on how you look at it. And I can tell you I do A LOT more unique stuff in Skyward Sword than I do in Skyrim. Don't get me wrong Skyrim is a brilliant game with a very interesting world created around it. But Skyward Sword is just an incredible game, I was shocked at how well the controls respond and how well it plays. And if you wanna talk about Mario games (I'm talking about the core Mario games not the Party/Sports games) they're hands down the best platformers in the 2D and 3D realm as well as the 2D/3D realm now with Super Mario 3D Land since I'm not sure where to put that one. The only game that I've seen that rivals them in the past few years is Super Meat Boy...and god was that good.

What makes...

No....No

I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I am NOT imagining a world without Zelda. Nope, nope, not gonna do it...I'm not gonn.........CRAP I DID IT! Damn it! Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it! Damn it!!!!!

Sigh...Not only would we not have amazing games like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Spirit Tracks, etc. We also wouldn't have amazing games that were inspired by Zelda like Darksiders and 3D Dot Game Heroes.

Nah,

also

the farm wouldn't be fertile without nintendo's early success. atari almost killed the home gaming industry before it was even walking, and nintendo gave it a reason to live. if they hadn't succeeded with games like zelda, there would have been no conceivable market for sony and MS- hell, sony didn't even come in until nintendo was on its 3rd device (NES, Gameboy, SNES), and MS even later, so they had plenty of ideas and blueprints to utilize in how to create their systems, and plenty of 3rd parties to create games. in a world without zelda, nintendo might still exist- but if nintendo didn't succeed with mario AND zelda in the 80's, there wouldn't be much going on in the home console gaming market, and no 3rd party companies making games.

Nintendo Wii U - Sega Dreamcast of 2012.

This will be the future of Nintendo Wii - Big Holiday rush like Dreamcast 1999 then long drought of AAA titles followed up by pulling out of the hardware business ala Sega in January 2001. Look for the 1st Mario game on PS4 and XBox 720 then followed by Pokemon on PS Vita ,then Zelda being on both PS4 and XBox 720 by Christmas 2014.

I doubt Nintendo will ever be a 3rd party developer

I mean never say never, but Nintendo won't stop making hardware. We need them for the variety and competition they provide otherwise we might as well have just one console. Plus Mario will never die, he will be pushing consoles long after you and I are gone.

Good morning, Fluff piece

Not at all

Zelda isn't Nintendo's flagship series. Mario is. I can't believe I just read this disrespectful phrase on a site that calls itself "1-Up", somewhat of an allusion to the 1-Up Mushrooms in the Mario series (AKA Nintendo's flagship series). Don't get me wrong: I love Zelda. It's one of Nintendo's Big Three hitters. But, it IS called 'The House that Mario Built'. Anyway, good article. Although I do suspect many of these evolution in gaming would have still come naturally, they may not have come in quite the way the Zelda series (and Mario or Metroid series for that matter), have brought them.

are you done trolling?

"Although I do suspect many of these evolution in gaming would have still come naturally, they may not have come in quite the way the Zelda series (and Mario or Metroid series for that matter), have brought them"

Not to mention...

This article is really only for how specifically Zelda changed the industry. It's not saying Zelda is the only saving grace and piece of innovation put out by Nintendo, and Nintendo has certainly put out many innovative gems. It's only focusing sepcifically on what Zelda did.

Interesting idea for an article, but...

While I am not a Nintendo-hater in any way and realize that the Zelda series is (mostly) great, I don't agree with this article at all. I believe that most of the advances described in this text would have come around anyway, as part of a natural progression. In fact, I think the gaming world would have been pretty much exactly the same, except some other game would have held the reverence that Zelda does now. And to be perfectly honest, I think you could also turn this completely around and examine what positive developments could have come out of not having Zelda.

truedat

Most of those outcomes...

Don't sound so bad at all. The PC supremacy and chaotic design sounds like a universe where Nethack and Dwarf Fortress became mainstream and the reliance upon a games past has done more to stifle creative sequels giving us year after year of worn out "franchises". And the existence of Zelda sure didn't stop the move towards linear gameplay with QTEs as games strive to be movies instead.

In conclusion, the second task for someone with a Time Machine should be to stop Zelda from existing.

Heh..

Far more accessible than Ultima or Wizardry?

"Zelda showed how well this idea could work in a context far more accessible than what could be found in Ultima or Wizardry."

Seriously? Back in the 80s it didn't seem to bother anyone, most of us gamers were pretty much just the 'hardcore' crowed. Casual gamers didn't exist back then. So to me and others I knew, the complexity of Ultima was not a problem, it was simply how we liked it.

Not only that but

compared to today's games, the original Zelda was friggin hard--not what I would call accessible. They didn't tell you where anything was. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know that if I burn ONE SPECIFIC BUSH that's how I can enter level 8?

It's unfortunate, but it happens

Games couldn't teeter towards the "Hardcore" crowd forever. The reason why it didn't bug anyone back then is because it was the only option out there. The evolution of gaming was bound to happen and looking back, those PC games from the 80's really are niche in their appeal. So perhaps you enjoyed the complexity, but that doesn't mean companies didn't want to appeal to a larger audience.

i somewhat agree with Chronon.

accessibility is needed by the companied to ensure that they're not selling to a niche audience. when i was a kid, most people over 25 didn't play the NES due to the difficulty and cumbersome complexity of most games, where i was already used to it by the time i began to speak. now i'm in my early 30's, and i can play a game i've never played before and grasp the controls and play style in a matter of minutes. my parents, not so much. BUT, they understood the wii, touch screens, and games with simplified controls and story driven or QT cues, prompting them into their next move. hell, most of my peers don't have the capacity to play games that drop a character into a scenario with little explaination. 'hardcore' is an imaginary word. am i not a hardcore driver because i drive a car with an automatic gearbox, or worse yet, a newer car that doesn't suffer the stigma of powerless steering, severe weight imbalance, old-world suspension setup and a lack of ABS? in all reality, old games were more difficult because of the archaic media- you couldn't fit the text of a story into most console games because you needed the space for varied sprites, sounds and music. you'd hit enemies and fall down pits more often because physics engines didn't exist, and most games had chaotic, and drastically different control schemes. i think games are more sophisticated these days, and built so anybody can enjoy them. i must say that i tend to enjoy long games with varied environments, enemies, music and scenarios, but i also like them to be somewhat possible to beat without a major sweat, because it's satisfying to beat a game- something i didn't do quite so often when i was a kid- and i just don't have the time or patience for repetition these days to do menial tasks over and over, because a developer carelessly decided not to tweak an area of the game that leaves you with a jump that MUST be millimeter-spot-on to survive. save points, normal-easy modes and story prompting are my friends. any company can make a difficult game- they work very hard to make sure areas aren't impassible, where they could have easily made un-clearable pits, and areas like in zelda 1, where you enter a room full of 8+ armored knights with shields, while statues fire away with their projectiles, and you MUST clear the room to proceed. i say play arcade games, ha ha- nothing says impossible difficulty like a machine that's designed to eat a buck fifty or more of your money just to make sure you die, so it can eat more of your funds.

Oh Please.

This article is just a Nintendo fan's wet dream. There would be reprecussions on Nintendo but Zelda didn't do anything so innovative as to change the ways games were made. If anything, it's greatest accomplishment is showcasing that you can make the same game for decades and people would still buy it out of nostalgia. I was a PC gamer back in the day wihich is a rare sight and I can say there were way more innovative PC games at the time, even back in the Atari days.

without Z

Poor Warren Robinett

Everyone forgets he created the first action-adventure with his seminal Adventure for the Atari 2600 (which is also credited for having the first Easter Egg and possibly the first continue option). Too bad we never got any worthwhile sequels to that one, although Zelda gets credit for the save feature, greater accessibility, and overall, helping resurrect the game console industry. And it was more fun (as it should be, being on much better hardware).

It's a Safe Assumption

In fact, other games were already using some of these standards, as seen in games like Hydlide for the MSX computer, which made its way to the Famicom not long after Zelda's release. (Hydlide, of course, is no where near as good as Zelda, but does use some of the same innovations. I think, though, that one's success over the other is due more to proper implementation of said innovations that the features themselves--Hydlide was a mess compared to the nicely and finely tuned Zelda.)

Why be a dick?

Ever hear the term "nothing is original?"

At some point in time SOMEBODY would have come up with a more open ended level design, a competent targeting system or the idea of a proper sequel. Do you think that if Henry Ford would have been hit by a car at age 5 and died that no one would have ever invented the mass production model? Theidea is too good, too practical for NO ONE in the entire world to not consider it.

In a world without Navi...

A world without Zelda

The only benefit I see in this is that Tingle wouldn't exist. But do you think Nintendo would profit on Mario alone? I'm just glad we have Zelda games, a game about a kid going up against immesurable odds to stop evil and rescue the princess, while enduring hardships along the way, exploring a vast world and finding it's secrets, the story, conquering your fears of entering the dungeons, and personal growth in the end. That's what the Zelda series mean to me appart about having fun.

Objection!

You sir, are out of line. In our world of gaming we need gaming creations we dislike as much as the ones we like. Tingle is a vital piece of that world. Hating him helped to distract me from the fact that I couldn't walk around as Oni-Link at all times.

oh but you can...

I wish other old school franchises would learn from what Zelda has done right

As a dedicated fan of Castlevania over the years, it would be great to see them take cues from modern Zelda games and get their 3D right. Lords of Shadow was a step in the right direction (albeit approximately) but something just still feels wrong with the series in 3D